Daihatsu Applause Mods ?

[jimmythe7th]

Hello newbie here

Hi i recently purchased a Daihatsu Applause 5 speed manual 1.6 L with fuel injection. Mainly because of a good deal and its different to what everyone else has. My main problem is i cant find much information on modifications. I want to go at it differently in stead of putting on an exhaust i could put on a bigger throttle body or modify the gears hope u get my drift. I know turbos get most bang for bucks but that is out of the question because of insurance.

I have put on a cool air induction and thats about it. Any suggestions are greatly appricated.

Thanks James

[bjm]

go to daihard

at www.bbs.daihard.org

they are a site dedicated to daihatsus, and there are a few threads there in the engine section that may help.

A set of extractors and an exhaust are a good starting place though.

Forget the throttle body though at this stage. With a standard cam the throttle body isnt really a problem.

Your money can be better spent on cams, adjustible cam pulleys, some mild head work etc....

A diff swap with a gtti charade is possible that is a 4.3 to 4.6 change. A few other things are possible but the above things should be done before you play with anything else.

[Turbo 351]

I had one of these cars as a run around, they are a good thing. Maybe try MRT, i think they did alot of diahatsu stuff. Find their number in any hot 4's or fast fours

[jimmythe7th]

thanks for the replys sure cleared somethings up

Latter

[bjm]

so how are all those mods going then??

are you getting that engine moving or what :D

[jimmythe7th]

Hey still reshearching the mods i dont wanna just run out and do something thing because i can. Im still in skool almost finished 3 weeks to go:). After i finish skool and get a job ill start putting money into it. It wont be for a while but ill let u know of what mods i take out. Thanks for ya help Bjm

latter james

[nilezy]

Hey.

Have owned an Applause for nearly 8 years now, still running the factory engine, with 2k short of 300k, have floged the hell out of the engine, dun some mods, fixed most of the problems, bought the car at 82k, so I know a fair bit about these cars..........

They are a great everyday driving car, and you can mod them to a point. They share alot of the same engine components as the 1.3 charades, so you can use some of the parts and stuff.... The engine management I thought was pretty advanced, as it has a learning function built into it. But as I found out not so long ago, the engine has no Knock detection, other than the programmed knock control, and the ECU is fuel only, so it doesn't control ignition timing. So thats a bit of a bastard. However the engine has alot of potential, its a strong engine, I'd say its in the same class as the 4AGE in technology. Its a pity that Diahatsu couldn't have brought it out in DOHC, it would rock then! They have 4 wheels disc brakes standard on all models, and all the rest of the fancy stuff on the upper class models like elec mirrors, windows, power steering, factory mags, climate control, etc.......

There is not much in the way of spare parts from wrecks for some reason. I have only ever seen two wrecks around the country! so its genuine new parts, or the aftermarket parts companies. Actually its not too bad now, but back in 96 when we bought the car, its was mostly allways genuine parts that you had to by, coz nobody did aftermarket, was frustrating!!

The engine is coming up to 300k , doesn't blow any smoke, doesn't run rough, consume oil, heaps of fuel, actually I'm getting about 9-10 litres/100k, so thats not bad for a 300k engine!! I have run a teflon additive, which I stand by, called Nulon E20 which I have used in several engines, which have out done there usual lives.

I did some research on the car itself. Apparently they came out in northern Europe with 4WD, they had a V6 that is similar to the Suzuki 2.5 V6, and they had 160 HP. I have tried to see if I could get any parts to convert mine, but its so far away, so I gave up.

I did have some problems with the car though.......
The one I have is an Li, so it doesn't have all the fancy stuff that the Xi and Executive models have, and so the sound deading is less ( I guess that makes it lighter? :) ) so the road noise around 80k's and up is pretty noisy. Diahatsu must have had a run of bad rear shocks from their suppliers, as I had to replace both rear shocks with factory ones, as the shaft of the shock started to pit, and the shocks lost oil, and became very noisy. I think that happened just before 200k.

Other than that, they are a great car, built very well, share the same building techs as Toyota use in the car of the same era and some of the parts.

Aw, and just another note, the later model cars, the last of the Applauses that came out are actually lower spec, they may look fancy inside the cabin, but they lost the rear discs, and other stuff like that.

Cheers Nilezy

[bjm]

if you want the 1.6 engine I would put it into the lighter charade model, if you can handle driving a hatch back around that is ;)

I did and my car goes ok :D

[audineil]

I like these engines, perhaps for obvious reasons but:
They are not a match for the 4AGE as they are SOHC with rocker valve actuation, they have a cast iron crank which has problems at high RPM, the conrods are a little small and need work to be reliable at high power outputs, the oil pump can be a problem at high RPM and they really need a crank scraper which the 4AGE's have. On the + side they are very light with their alloy block.
You can get quite serious power from these things but cam selection is limited to around 270 - 275 degrees advertised duration with the standard ECU. If you want good compression in a 1600 use the 1300 pistons. They respond well to mild porting and simple valve mods. The standard DeTomaso extractors are quite good. Valve springs are a problem at high lifts.
Let us know how you go.
Neil

[jimmythe7th]

Thanks for all the replys guys sure given me somethings to think about. A few of my mates have driven my car and were surprised at how hard it goes as was I when I brought her its a bit of a surprise packet. Im not saying its a monster but it gose better than people expect. Ive also finally found a helpful website for applause's its

http://members.iinet.net.au/~bebop1/applause.html

for anyone thats interrested. I recon a modded applause would be a perfect sleeper looks like a pensioner car people wouldent know what passed em. Just my Opinion

Thanks for the help james

[bjm]

Yes the applause is ok, but to be honest the 1.6 engine is better in a charade as you have over 100kg less to worry about wrt the weight of the car.

Anyway Rospen motorsports is a good place to look and Ross is a good bloke who is helpful. I have bought a little bit of stuff through him.

My main mods however are exactly what audineil and I have outlined and to this point those mods have completely transformed my car (and the headwork was done by audineil). I would follow the step by step approach outlined in audineil's post and go the cam and headwork and guarentee you will notice a big improvement.

good luck and let us know what you decide, or if you need anymore advice head to the site we put up earlier or ask here.

cheers

[jimmythe7th]

Hey

New at this have some questions be kind

With a different cam and changing to 1300 pistons (please explain better compression and what is does ) and other things outlined in audineil post. I am courious to how much this stuff would cost and what kinda of power increse?

Thanks James

[bjm]

How much power?

the question asked by every self respecting car enthusiast!! :D

Honestly its more pertinent to work out how much money you have and then work around that.

Audineil did all the headwork on my car but I am working to different budgets etc so the best thing for you to do is post how much you want to spend (even if in stages or whatever) and we can recommend something to give you the best bang for buck :)

cheers

[jimmythe7th]

Hey

I wont have a job till ealry next year kinda got an apprenticeship lined up. I will still be living at home so can put most of the pay into my car:) . Having said that i would rather drive it stock for a while and save for a more effective mod. My budget for inital mod would be about $1000 give or take after saving for a bit hope i still have the intrest in the car early next year. Any mod around that price range. OR is there somethig else that is worth saving that bit extra for.

Thanks James

[bjm]

If you save some more you can have the head ported with a cam and a little shaved off the head to increase compression a bit.

Depends if you can take off the head and fit it on again yourself....the cam timing is critical to having the engine run well so you might want to get somone to help you with that or have it set on a dyno (get an adjustible cam gear made up).

Not sure on the actual pricing though, but oyu would need to save a little more......obviously the more money you have the faster you will go.